The Movie Star President

Outrageous History!

In American politics, you could say that there have been two Presidents elected with movie star quality - one of them is Ronald Reagan, who parlayed his movie and teleivsion career into the highest office in the land. The other is a man who never actually had any role in a film. His name: John F. Kennedy. But, as author John Hellmann writes in his book The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK, "Never appearing in an actual film, but rather turning the television apparatus into his screen, he became the greatest movie star of the twentieth century." Listen as Hellmann and journalist Ernest Granson discuss how Kennedy harnessed the media and the public's fantasy to become a global superstar.